Eyes on the Prize / Olympians see past the pomp, focus on winning the gold

David Steele

Published 4:00 am, Friday, September 15, 2000

2000-09-15 04:00:00 PDT Sydney -- Four years ago, the official beginning of the Olympic Games in Atlanta was signaled by the appearance of Muhammad Ali lighting the torch at the Opening Ceremonies. Yesterday afternoon Ali showed up at Rosehill Gardens racetrack, and in an unofficial sense he was playing the same role: Let the Games begin.

Ali is a pleasant reminder to all who have gotten caught up, understandably so, by the ceremonies you'll see on your televisions tonight: all the parties and fireworks

and rampant merchandising and rapt attention to who was going to carry the torch, who was going to light the cauldron, who was going to sit in the IOC president's box, what the First Daughter was thinking, and whether the buses would show up.

Today the preliminaries are over, the politicians and dignitaries step aside and turn things over to the stars of the show, the reasons anyone should care about this event, the ones that will leave memories far more indelible than anything that happened early this morning in the stadium.

Now, it's about the athletes. As much as Ali the celebrity was honored in Atlanta, it was also Ali the athlete, the one who first stepped onto the world stage four decades ago at the Olympics in Rome. Once he stepped aside, the Sydney Games became the canvas for Michael Johnson and Dot Richardson and Mia Hamm and Donovan Bailey and Alexander Popov to create their masterpieces.

Nearly 11,000 athletes marched into the stadium early today amid the spectacle of the Opening Ceremonies, and it's that ceremony that tonight will likely draw the biggest American television audience of the next two weeks of competition. But it's what commences later today -- soccer has been going on for three days in other cities around Australia, but now the competition finally begins in Sydney proper -- that will set the tone of the Games.

The American athletes, for example, will be the first to tell you that while they will love the pageantry of the monumental Opening Ceremonies, that's not what they came for, and it won't be what they'll take away from the Games. Competing with the best in the world, they'll tell you, is what they crave; they want the little ceremony, on the medal stand.

"To be here fighting in the Olympics, to get into the ring and try to win a gold medal, this is what I've been trying to get to my whole life," said American boxer Jose Navarro. "This is my dream come true."

LIFETIME OF SACRIFICE

The same goes for the track stars, the swimmers, the weightlifters, the basketball and softball and volleyball players -- everybody who has sacrificed a lifetime to make it here. That even goes for the athletes, now numbering more than 40, who took that extra, unethical step, got caught using banned substances and were told to stay home (or in some cases, to go home).

Those numbers are expected to increase as the Games progress, as will the debate over who got away with cheating -- and the debate over whether cheating is wrong in the first place, with all of this at stake. To this day, polls and surveys among the athletes continue to reveal large numbers that admit they would take anything that would guarantee them victory, even if it cost them their health or years off their lives.

If you're going to those lengths, you're probably a little less concerned about light shows, concerts or the fact that Greg Norman and Karrie Webb participated in the torch relay.

Some of the biggest names of this year's Games went out of their way to avoid the preliminary madness. Cathy Freeman, the 400-meter track star and national hero, arrived yesterday afternoon Sydney time, and her every move from the moment she stepped off the plane was tracked by the Australian media. Marion Jones, who is poised to be the megastar of the Games in her pursuit of five gold medals, got the same treatment two days earlier. So did Johnson and Maurice Greene and French runner Marie Jose Perec, and all the others that trickled in over the course of the week.

None were thrilled with the extensive scrutiny before they've set foot on the track in anger. All wanted to get to the races. Like all the others, everything they've done has been pointed toward the summit of these two weeks -- to take what could be a once-in-a-lifetime shot.

DEVASTATING DENOUEMENT

Those who came tantalizingly close but whose paths were halted at the very end must be devastated. That certainly was the case for U.S. distance runner Regina Jacobs, shot putter C.J. Hunter and gymnast Morgan White, all of whom are in Sydney but who were injured or fell ill on the eve of their trip, knocking them out of the Games.

The pain was even more excruciating for Australian light flyweight boxer Bradley Hore, who starved and sweated himself for an entire day before yesterday's weigh-ins for the competitions that begin late tonight. He had to make his class weight of 48 kilograms (106 pounds); he measured out at 49 kilograms and was disqualified from competition. The 18-year-old fell into his father's arms and sobbed uncontrollably.

NBC will try to package that emotion for television consumption. It really doesn't have to, though. It's all there in front of our own eyes. It's why the tears flowed four years ago as Ali held the torch, and why security had to clear a path for him through a mob of admirers two days ago. The passion, pain and glory of the Games never fades away. The next serving from the Olympic Games begins today.

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.